Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

UNICEF Cooperates with 10 Airlines to Convey Vaccines to 100 Countries


Tue 16 Feb 2021 | 02:37 PM
Ahmed Moamar

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has launched an initiative to benefit from air transportation for humanitarian purposes.

The fund will sign agreements with more than ten airlines to support conveying and delivering shipments of Coronavirus vaccines to various parts of the world.

The UNICEF issued a press release on Tuesday, revealing that the contracted airlines pledged to help the organization in its historic task to distribute the vaccines around the world.

The airlines coordinate with the organization to define priorities of delivering vaccines, basic medicines, apparatuses, and other medical supplies to respond effectively to pandemics.

Etleiva Caddeli, Director-General of the Supply Department under the UNICEF, expressed the gratitude of the organization to the airlines and welcomed the plans to unify efforts to distribute the anti-Coronavirus vaccines.

She said that offering these saving-life vaccines is a great and complicated task in light of huge quantities of vaccines that must be conveyed and cooled and big numbers of beneficiaries.

The UNICEF’s initiative comes within the frame of emergency plans to face health and humanitarian problems in the long-range.

The airlines will launch flights bound for more than 100 countries around the world according to COVAX international plan to distribute the vaccines adequately under the supervision of the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the first stage of the  COVAX plan, 145 countries in the world will receive doses to vaccinate about 3% of their population on average during the first six months of the current year.

The initiative also concludes answering to all needs in the later stages of distributing the vaccines.

The airlines must take strict measures to keep the vaccines valid such as adjusting temperature degrees and safety.

The UNICEF pointed out that the pledge to provide vaccines and vital supplies on time and in a safe manner to provide basic services to children, families and medical crews in the targeted countries.